


IN VENTS VERITAS

by orphan_account



Category: Among Us (Video Game)
Genre: Bisexual Male Character, Canon-Typical Violence, Forbidden Love, Gay Male Character, M/M, Murder Mystery, Nonbinary Character, Violent but not gory, everyone is british because i am, you get to work out who the impostors are
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:27:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26918089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Brown's pretty much resigned to the fact he's going to die today, but White's coming dangerously close to reminding him what he has to live for. Each round brings new death, though, and Brown has no idea who's really behind the helmets of any of his crewmates. Part murder mystery, part love story, part tragedy.
Relationships: Brown/White (Among Us)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 11





	IN VENTS VERITAS

**Author's Note:**

> in a far-future earth, the proposed solution to prison overcrowding is to send convicts into space in groups of ten to murder each other. it used to be popular among humans on earth, but it's fading into obscurity and all is left is death.
> 
> the impostor will get electric shocks if they try to do tasks, so it's difficult for them to fake them. impostors get into vents with special screwdrivers. this game doesn't have the rule where the impostor wins if there are an equal number of remaining crewmates to impostors, it's just a straight up bloodbath.
> 
> i hope you all enjoy reading this as much as i enjoy writing it! it'll get progressively more intense, don't worry

\--- ROUND ONE ---

Brown gripped the joystick tightly, the inside of his leather glove sticking uncomfortably to his palm. He’d missed every time he jerked the stick in the direction of an asteroid, and now he was just watching the asteroids glide over the little holographic screen, admitting defeat. It didn’t really matter - he knew the tasks only existed for the purpose of the game - but his throat was already feeling tight at the thought of being accused of faking tasks. He wondered how it would feel to be cast out of the airlock into space. What would kill him first? Would he keep gasping for breaths that never came? Or would his head explode, and ugly chunks of his flesh float down to Earth? He hoped one of them would make a giant crater, crush a city. At least he’d be remembered. Even the game was going out of fashion - it wasn’t interesting to see convicts murder each other anymore. It was still somewhere on the internet for sadists to enjoy, but Brown knew nobody was watching.

He closed one eye, pulled the joystick again. One asteroid gone, shattered. Nineteen to go, and he couldn’t focus at all. His eyes kept flicking back to the room, taking inventory. Steel interiors. Two exits barely visible in his peripheral vision. To his left, a dull grey vent, squat against the floor. Someone standing behind him.

He lurched round, throwing his arm up to hide his face. Was he about to beg for his life? Maybe it was better to be the first kill. Better to feel a knife sink into his guts and go to somewhere safe and warm, rather than stay trapped in this hellish game with all the torment of not knowing.

‘Jump a little higher, maybe?’ said the figure. White. A bleached mirror image of Brown, nothing visible beneath the dark glint of his helmet. Brown could hear the smirk in his voice, though, and it made his chest pang with something. He crushed it down. He couldn’t be making friends on the last day of his life.

‘You scared me,’ Brown said, quietly, turning back to the hologram, running his fingers over the joystick. He’d have more of a chance to concentrate - White could watch the exits, now. Unless--

He turned again, breath stuck uncomfortably in his throat. ‘You’re not - Fuck, you aren’t an Impostor, are you?’

‘Nah,’ said White. Again, Brown could almost hear him smile. His voice felt like something familiar, the accent tugging at the back of Brown’s mind. ‘Feel like an Impostor would say that, though, so who knows if it’s any proof.’

Brown half-smiled, and then remembered White couldn’t see him. He stabbed at another asteroid, missing completely.

‘You’re shit at that,’ said White, barking a laugh, and Brown flushed. He hadn’t expected this kind of casual joking. White stepped closer, reaching an arm round Brown, and his hand rested on top of Brown’s. He guided the joystick back to the centre of the hologram, and left his hand on Brown’s.

‘What you gotta do,’ he said, voice quieter, ‘is just wait for them to pass over the middle, and then you just press the button and shoot them down. They’re too quick for you to move and shoot each one unless you got some crazy reaction times. Which I don’t think you do.’

White drummed his other hand on the back of Brown’s chair, and then knocked his knuckles lightly on Brown’s helmet.

‘Don’t look at  _ me _ ,’ he said, ‘look at the task.’

Again, the smile in his voice. Brown looked back at the hologram, feeling his face heat in the helmet. He jabbed at the button once, then again. Seventeen. Sixteen.

After he’d gotten down to ten, he asked White, ‘Are you not worried by the prospect of our imminent deaths?’

‘Shitting myself,’ said White, ‘but let’s not think about that for now. You do your task. Then we can go to your next one. We should stay together, now, cos I know you’re not the Impostor now.’

‘There’s two,’ said Brown, absentmindedly, shooting down another few asteroids.

‘Two what? Two of your goddamn asteroids left?’

‘Two impostors,’ said Brown. ‘In the game.’

White was silent. Brown studied the black visor of his helmet, but all he could see was his own reflection, twisting into a spiral when he moved his eyes.

After a moment, White said, ‘Yeah. Shite odds, right?’

So he didn’t want to talk about it. Brown could deal with that. He turned back to the hologram and the task, carefully watching the counter at the bottom of the screen. Three asteroids left. Two. One. Zero. Shattered pieces of rock floated across the screen for another few seconds, and then it flickered to say TASK COMPLETED. Brown glanced at the screen on his lanyard, and saw the task bar slowly creep up. It hadn’t passed the second notch yet. He was probably holding them all back.

He stood up and crashed into White, who was still standing still behind the chair.

‘Fuck,’ said White, stumbling backwards. ‘Sorry. I was thinking.’

Brown wanted to ask him what about, but he swallowed and looked around the room instead. ‘I, uh - what task do you have next? Were you gonna do asteroids too?’

‘I did wires at the start while you were cocking up the asteroids,’ said White. ‘Dunno where I need to go next, but it’s only round one. Better to figure out sus now rather than doing tasks, I guess. Crewmates barely ever win on tasks anyway.’

He sounded surprisingly resigned. Brown nodded, looking between the exits again. ‘I guess I should go, then,’ he said. ‘Good luck with the game. Don’t get murdered.’

‘Hang about,’ said White, and Brown’s chest lifted with the return of the smile in White’s voice. ‘You’re not going anywhere, mate. I know you’re not the Impostor, so we’re best off if we stay together. It’s easier for the Impostor to pick off people on their own, so we’ll last longer together.’

‘Alright,’ said Brown, trying not to let the relief show in his voice. ‘If you like.’

White gave him a mock-salute but misjudged the distance, fingers bouncing off his helmet. ‘Fuck,’ he said, in a voice that was somewhere between surprise and embarrassment.

Brown spluttered out a laugh, and White looked back up at him, starting to laugh too. A moment passed where Brown managed to forget he was going to die today, and then it was over and both of them must’ve thought the same thing, because the room felt cold again and the dull grey walls seemed to have absorbed any essence of joy.

‘Where are you going next?’ said White, voice sounding more sober.

‘Electric,’ said Brown, softer.

‘Right. Electric.’

\--- --- ---

They went back down through the cafeteria, boots ringing out through the empty room. Orange was standing at the wires at the top of storage, and White and Brown both turned to look at him. Orange looked back, or maybe not. His head was turned, but it was impossible to see what was under the glossy sheen of his helmet.

Electric felt cramped. A mass of wires covered the floor, metal boxes covered in yellow stickers sprawling from every surface, the ceiling low enough to almost graze the top of Brown’s helmet. For a second, Brown thought about what it’d be like in here if the lights went. A sorry place to die, for sure.

White stopped. Behind him, Brown did the same, almost knocking into him again.

‘D’you hear that?’ White said, softly.

Brown did.

A soft, painfully human sound, coming from somewhere in the room. Crying.

White was moving before Brown could say anything, crashing through the room and then dropping to his knees before one of the cabinets. Brown could hear what he was saying without understanding the words - soft, soothing murmurings, the sort you’d ease a child with.

‘Is there a body?’ Brown asked, voice uncomfortably high.

White didn’t turn. Brown stepped closer, feeling awkwardly tall next to White’s kneeling figure. Then he saw it: huddled within a mass of wires, the bright pink of a spacesuit. Pink, huddled with her knees tucked up to her chest, sniffling quietly. She’d taken her helmet off and Brown could see her face clearly. She was younger than him - not by so much, but enough for her to look like a child in comparison. Her head was shaved like all of the rest of them, her hair dark but patchy in places, growing back roughly. Dark eyes, sunken into her head, cheekbones casting long shadows on her cheeks, tears blinking from her long eyelashes.

‘You need to put your helmet back on,’ said White, picking up the discarded sphere and handing it back to her. ‘The air in here’s no good, Pink. You don’t want to do that for more than a couple minutes.’

Pink was looking right through him, staring at something that Brown couldn’t make out and that might not have even be there.

‘You’re going to kill me,’ she said, voice painfully soft. ‘You kill me now.’

‘Fuck,’ said White, and Brown heard his voice catch. ‘We’re not going to kill you. Nobody’s here to kill you. Me and Brown, we’re good, I saw Brown do weapons. We’ll - You can walk around with us, we’ll keep you safe.’

‘Promise?’ she asked, tears shining yellow and green and blue and red in the blinking lights.

White nodded, holding out his little finger to her. She held out her little finger, curling it round his, and they shook hands. White’s hands dwarfed hers in comparison. She really did seem like a child. White held out his whole hand and grabbed Pink’s wrist, pulling her slowly to her feet. Brown leaned down to pick up her helmet and handed it to White. White leaned down to put it on Pink’s head, twisting it in to clip.

‘Can you reach it?’ he said, meaning the fastening on the back.

Pink paused. It was strange to see her face gone again, replaced by the darkness of the visor.

‘Alright,’ said White, stepping around her and stooping to fix the fastening, then holding both thumbs up for Pink to see. He took her hand, then looked around for Brown. ‘Did you have a task in here?’

‘I have wires,’ said Brown, throat feeling dry. ‘I’ll just --’

An alarm sung out across the room, deafening Brown.

White swore. ‘Is that a meeting? Is someone dead?’

A voice, over the intercoms, tinny and robotic. A DEAD BODY HAS BEEN REPORTED. ALL PLAYERS PLEASE REPORT TO CAFETERIA.

\--- DISCUSSION ---

They all drifted into the cafeteria, sitting on the floor around one of the low, round tables. Brown couldn’t decide if the other players were meeting his eyes. There they all were, a sorry rainbow of murder, trying to decide which ones they could trust.

White bumped his shoulder against Brown’s, a small gesture of reassurance. 

The intercoms, again. DISCUSSION TIME BEGINS. Brown glanced around the circle again. He couldn’t remember who wasn’t there.

Yellow was the first to speak. ‘Purple,’ she said, ‘is dead.’

Brown realised, belatedly, that there was a purple lump at the entrance of the cafeteria, a red trail snaking away from it.

‘What the fuck,’ he said, softly. ‘Do we just drag the bodies in here?’

‘You have to put them in the airlock,’ said Black. His voice was sharper, sounding more mature. ‘They start to smell otherwise, and it’s a trip hazard.’

‘She is fucking  _ dead _ ,’ said White, waving a hand at Black. ‘You can’t call her a - a fucking  _ trip hazard.  _ Jesus.’

Pink was whimpering again, softly.

‘Do we have any idea who did it?’ said Blue. Their voice was clearer, but still with a slight tremor to it.

The circle was blank. Nobody spoke.

‘We shouldn’t vote unless we’re sure,’ said Red. ‘It’s way too early, guys. No point killing off more of our members until we have a chance to see who’s actually sus. I reckon we should just leave it. It’s round one. We’re gonna have more time.’

‘More people are gonna fucking  _ die _ ,’ said White. He was looking over at Purple, or what used to be Purple. It was difficult to tell from all the blood, but Purple seemed to be missing several internal organs.

‘So we should just kill someone in the airlock off a guess? You’re chatting bullshit,’ said Red, waving his hands at White. ‘C’mon, man.’

White inhaled, and then Orange cut across him.

‘I personally think,’ they said, ‘that it’s Black.’

Everyone turned to look at Black.

‘That,’ said Black, ‘is a load of shit. I’ve been in Cams the whole time.’

‘’Cause you don’t have tasks,’ said Yellow.

Black turned to look at Yellow. ‘For God’s fucking  _ sake _ ,’ he said. ‘It’s first round. Tasks are useless at this point, we need to be gathering intel. I’m your strategic side while you’re all running round yelling. I’m keeping careful track of where everyone is. When someone kills or vents, I’m going to know who it is. I’ll do a visual task if it makes you all happy. You vote me off, you’re losing yourself the game.’

‘Alright,’ said Red, waving a hand. ‘Cool it, no need for the essay.’

‘I don’t want to vote unless we’re sure,’ said Cyan, quietly. ‘I think - I think maybe we should just skip.’

Brown looked around the circle. Eight black visors looked back.

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Maybe we should just skip.’

\--- VOTING ---

No one was ejected.

Two Impostors remain.


End file.
